Florida Real Estate Question

[ISellRiverview]

I recently passed the Florida Real Estate State Exam but of course I have a hundred questions about day-to-day real estate activities that they don't teach you in the course. One thing that I am not clear on even after school is how referral fees work between agents. One section in the curiculum talked about not being able to take or give fees to non-agents for referrals. But how does it work between agents if you refer business to someone in another state, or in your own state in a different city? What is the law on that, does anyone know?

[RESteve]

From what I understand, the referral fee is agreed upon before passing the client to the agent you are referring to out-of-state. The fees are not fixed, or regulated in any way; you simply decide before sending the client out.

I obviously want to help my fellow agent at another KW out of state, so I will refer within my company.

Since you are interviewing, this is a good question for your new prospective broker as different brokerages may have different policies on this subject.

[Ryan Ward]

While I am not in Florida, I believe we have many of the same rules. If you referred someone to me here in Atlanta, you and I woud sign a broker referral agreement.

[webmaster]

You will find most people requesting or giving between a 25-30% referral fee for closed transactions, you can of course offer more if you don't mind dipping into your commissions - as a new hungry (Not as in starving but as in motivated) agent, you might want to see if you can entice some good referrals by offering a higher split.

Btw congrats on passing your exam, that is awesome for you! What area are you servicing?

[JChristin]

Since my practice is outside the realms of residential, when a friend or family member requires residential services I "refer" the business out. Recently, a family member passed over and I made a referral to someone I felt comfortable would provide superior service. If I were to walk into a residential brokerage, I would seek out the newest and hungriest looking broker in the office. The days I spent in that condition was when I worked my hardest and learned the most. It was part of the finest experiences in my professional career.

If I understand your question about referral fees correctly: Typically, non-licensees cannot be paid a referral fee from a licensee; except between property management and tenants, or former tenants, and provided they had been a resident during a six month period prior to the referral.

Congrats on your achievement! Now the work begins!!!

Best of luck.

[ISellRiverview]

You will find most people requesting or giving between a 25-30% referral fee for closed transactions, you can of course offer more if you don't mind dipping into your commissions - as a new hungry (Not as in starving but as in motivated) agent, you might want to see if you can entice some good referrals by offering a higher split.

Btw congrats on passing your exam, that is awesome for you! What area are you servicing?

Riverview/Brandon (which is near Tampa) Florida is the area I am looking to find a broker in.

[BrandonSternfield]

You could go to a broker's website, then search for your area. I know KW has this, as do most of the other big ones.

[Calum]

Hi Liane,

First, congrats on passing the exam!

Once you sign on with a broker, you'll more than likely join the Greater Tampa Association of Realtors, from there you'll get access to floridarealtors.org, which has a standard Referral Agreement. You're Broker should be able to walk you through the steps of completing the agreement. It's really simple and straight forward.

I hope this helps, good luck with your broker interviews.

Calum

[RonnieG]

... I have a hundred questions about day-to-day real estate activities that they don't teach you in the course.

You will get some of that in the FL post-licensing courses, but I also recommend taking the GRI courses as soon as possible. I did that in my very first year, which happened to be in north FL. The GRI courses satisfied all of my FL post-licensing education requirements, as well as giving me a great foundation of practical RE marketing and general practice info. I also worked my first year at a large regional brokerage (Watson Realty) that provided a two week in-house "success school" that we all had to do. The 50/50 commission split sucked, but I got a great start to my career, with minimum outlay on my part, and worked with some great experienced agents in the process.